I catch up to him as we exit.
‘I just want to reiterate how sorry I am,’ I say, barely managing to hold in the tears that have been threatening since six this morning. ‘I really didn’t mean to put you in such a difficult position and affect the show’s reputation. I’ll do everything I can to?—’
‘You’ve done enough.’ I’ve never heard him so curt. It spears right through me and makes my legs feel like jelly. ‘Just… think, next time.’
Chapter 39
JACK
Minnie doesn’t want to come to mine so I’m trekking up the back stairs of some basic hotel on the outskirts of nowhere. Do they really put press up in this shit?
She’s been cryptic on WhatsApp but even I can read between the lines that her day was a steaming pile of wank. I want to do something nice for her but my options are limited since she’s refusing to leave her room. No bother, I can problem solve. My knuckles have barely touched her door when I’m dragged inside. She lets go of my shirt like I’m piping hot and I force myself not to be offended. The sight of her puffy red eyes splits me open. Tonight I’ll do everything in my power to take away her pain.
She pulls the hotel robe tighter around her and rubs her nose with her sleeve. ‘Hi.’ It’s not ‘I’m so pleased to see you’ or ‘thank god you’re here’. It’s flat. We’ve come too far for a flat greeting.
‘Get over here,’ I say, dumping my rucksack and putting my box on the side. When she doesn’t immediately move towards me, I wrap her in a tight embrace. She doesn’t relax. It’s fine, we have all night to work on it. ‘How was your day?’ I say it casually like I haven’t spent every waking second wondering.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Her voice is muffled by my jumper.
‘No problem.’ Well isn’t that the biggest fib in the world. Ineedto hear how bad it was. What did Greg say? Is her job safe? Was Brian a twat? Has she checked social media, because Channel 3 F1’s Instagram comments arewild. She shouldn’t read below the clip of our interview in Melbourne. People online are fucktards.
An apology sits on the tip of my tongue – for belittling her, for making the wrong call, for not putting her first, for not keeping her safe, for being so drunk on her that I flaunted our rules in the first place – but now’s not the right time. She doesn’t look like she wants to be reminded about anything to do with the last sixteen hours.
‘What’s in the box?’ she asks wearily, pulling away and crossing her arms. Her body language couldn’t be any more closed if we were in Antarctica in our underwear.
‘Take a look.’
She opens it up like a jack-in-the-box could pop out at any second. ‘A cake?’
‘A carrot cake with butter icing and no walnuts. Your favourite.’
She peers closer. ‘Did you bake it?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘It looks… homemade.’
I seize my poor, fragile heart. ‘Ouch! But yes, I did bake it – in Pagari’s hospitality kitchen, alongside Michelin-starred chefs. They were so appalled by my lack of technique they refused to help. Of course,’ I stop behind her, close enough for her to feel me but not close enough to touch, ‘I only care about what you think.’
‘I’m not hungry right?—’
‘It’s not for now. First, you’re going to have a bubble bath…’ I root around in my rucksack, ‘…with these bath salts and this candle. You’re going to read your minotaur porn and use thisface mask, which the packet says has brightening qualities, and I feel a little sunshine couldn’t hurt today.’ Her expression’s unreadable so I keep going. ‘Then when you get out, we’re going to inhale your favourite takeaway – bhuna for me, tikka masala for you, with extra garlic naan?—’
‘What about your diet?’ she interjects. ‘You’re being weighed the day after tomorrow.’
‘It’s chicken and vegetables. Just what the doctor ordered.’
‘And carbohydrates and sugar,’ she mutters.
I ignore her. ‘I’ll order it while you’re splashing about. And then we’re going to watchBridesmaids– your favourite romcom – with cake.’ Am I imagining it or did her eyebrows just rise and drop?
‘There’s no crystal meth in it,’ she says, and a small part of me releases. There’s my girl. I knew she was in there somewhere.
I tilt my head. ‘In the cake?’
She lifts her eyes to the ceiling. ‘In themovie.’
‘No? Deal’s off then. That’s a shame.’ I give her a cheeky grin to show I’m joking – I don’t think it’d take much for her to back out.
